Sergeant R is a Sergeant in Birmingham’s City Centre police team. He’s a long term night lens wearer and we thought we’d catch up to chat about how his career with the force has been different since he switched to night lenses – it’s a tale of mud, CS, IMAX and melted glasses frames! It’s meant to be a 60 second interview, but it was so good and useful to police officers, that we kept going ????
Q. How long have you been wearing night lenses?
About 12 years.
Q. What did you use before?
Originally, I denied needing glasses until university. In my twenties, I switched to monthly contact lenses.
Q. What difference do night lenses make to your job?
Glasses prone to falling off, and once, after a knock, my glasses’ arms melted! Contact lenses were better but had their issues—dry eyes, losing one, slipping out at inconvenient times.
Q. Any examples of fights/situations where you’re glad you had no contact lens in your eye?
Usually with the use of PAVA/CS.
Q. Deploying PAVA/CS – have you done it while wearing contact lenses? Concerns?
PAVA leaves me feeling sorry for myself even with night lenses. I’d imagine it’d be much worse with contact lenses.
Q. What situation do you remember where night lenses would have been invaluable?
A week-long exercise with the Territorial Army in muddy ditches – contact lenses were tough to manage, and glasses were an inconvenience.
Q. Home life: how has it helped to have no glasses or contact lenses?
It’s great. I don’t even own glasses anymore. No barriers to swimming, working out, driving – it’s like having no sight issues at all.
Q. What is easier and better in your life now because of night lenses?
It’s as if you don’t even wear glasses or contacts. Pop them in before bed, take them out when you wake up – about 60 seconds of my day. Occasionally not wearing them doesn’t result in much vision loss when I put them in again.
Q. Have you thought of laser eye surgery?
I discovered night lenses while exploring laser options.
Q. Does using night lenses save you from laser surgery?
Never say never, but I don’t think it’s worth it. My partner had laser eye surgery and suffered from dry eye and inconveniences for months.
Q. As a night lens wearer, is the concept of wearing a day lens now weird to you?
I can’t see why people wouldn’t opt for night lenses.
Q. Are you amazed that people still don’t know about night lenses?
I get looks of disbelief when I tell them, especially in my layman way!
Q. In your opinion, is it safer for officers to use night lenses than to wear day lenses or glasses?
Absolutely safer. I have six-monthly eye appointments to ensure the lenses are correcting appropriately, ensuring regular checks for abnormalities.
Q. Why would you recommend night lenses to other officers?
I’ll turn that around and say, ‘why wouldn’t I’?!?
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